Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

Vonnegut's late grandfather, Bernard, whom Vonnegut never meets, scorns his birthplace, Indianapolis, and is bemused his grandchildren drift away. Vonnegut wishes Father had insisted he study architecture and bonds with fellow storyteller, Donald Barthelme, as sons of architects. Casualties among the writers Vonnegut cares about are heavy: Bernard Malamud, James Jones, Nelson, Algren, Truman Capote and Irwin Shaw. Barthelme is only fifty-eight (compare the average age for American fatalities in World War II - twenty-six - and Vietnam - twenty. What a shame!) Vonnegut quotes his introduction to Algren's Never Come Morning, about how Algren, seventy-two, has written so intelligent a review of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, that Rushdie wants to meet him. Algren is bitter over how little he has received for his masterpiece, The Man with the Golden Arm, and is impudent, learning the American Academy and Institute of...